A 'Yey Bucky' moment before you know what happens...
Disclaimer: These characters are all Marvel's. I make no money from this and in fact give Marvel (willingly) lots of my money so they will continue creating movies I love.
Author's Note: It's all coming to a head (sorry terrible pun). And apologies for all the swears. Rated for human experimentation, medical torture and the other lovely stuff that Zola seems to enjoy so much. Featuring Arnim Zola, Johann Schmidt, Sgt James Barnes, Steve Rogers and more.
Hydra factory and prison camp Austria, Zola's lab – A short time later (Day 18 of testing, The End of October)
"Get off me you bug-eyed, micro-dicked, fuck-head."
Just twenty minutes had elapsed since he'd administered the sodium thiopental and Barnes was already free of the influence of the drug, and was somehow now also free of the leg restraint.
Zola had moved back to a sensible distance from where he was observing Koller's continuing attempts to re-secure the prisoner.
Despite the unlikelihood of that outcome, a small part of Zola was actually rooting for the Sergeant. Koller enjoyed violence just a little too much for the Doctor's tastes. But enough was enough, he already had another syringe ready to send the Sergeant back to sleep so he could restart the sedative I.V. He just needed Koller to get those legs strapped back down so he could avoid any unpleasantness while he administered the injection.
Koller wasn't finding it easy, even with two straps still securing the rest of the now re-energised US soldier to the bench.
Either Zola had misread the Sergeant's demeanour earlier, or reminding him of his home, men and family had simply renewed his determination to fight.
Zola suspected the latter. After all his resilience and loyalty had been the qualities that had indicated he'd be a suitable test subject for the serum in the first place, and if Erskine was correct, those aspects would have been amplified along with his physical traits.
Feltz and his fellow guard chose that moment to re-enter the lab, but instead of going to Koller's aid, they took up a position next to the wall and seemed content to simply watch the spectacle unfolding before them.
"Fuck you, you fat," kick "mal-coordinated," kick "glorified gorilla."
Yes, he would actually miss that creative flair when it was gone.
Koller had finally succeeded in pinning down Barnes' legs, though it appeared to be taking all of his considerable bulk to keep them locked in place. After a few moments he also managed to grab the loose ends of the leg strap and then looked at a complete loss.
"Herr Doctor?" Koller held up the buckle that secured the strap. The metal had snapped.
Clearly one of those totally inexplicable strength boosts had facilitated this minor and somewhat pointless bid for freedom.
"Feltz please fetch the other restraints." Another surge was not beyond the realms of possibility. "Best make it two."
"Yes Herr Zola."
The newly minted Hydra Sergeant and his fellow trooper moved to the unit where the temporary restraints were stored, fetched what was required, and went to help Koller deal with getting Barnes back under control.
One leg had again escaped Koller's grasp, and a knee it seems had managed to make firm contact with the guard's jaw if his split lip was any indication.
"You dim-witted, shit-eating toady!"
Yes Barnes was definitely a reader if his verbal dexterity was any indication.
Zola didn't know what the aim of this had been for the American. There were after all still two more straps, locked doors, hundreds of enemy soldiers and over 30 miles of heavily fortified and difficult terrain between him and any chance of anything even resembling freedom. But he'd still clearly felt the need to try. Exasperation rather than irritation best described what Zola himself felt about that.
It would truly be a joy to see that drive – and that deadly accuracy – put into service on the right side of this fight. But this was a clear indication that it was time to put an end to Barnes' continued resistance, and the chair was the most efficient and effective way at his disposal of doing that. Though it would have to wait until tomorrow. He still needed time to examine Harris after all and to allow Maintenance to do their work.
He'd also need to rework the fixed restraints on both the table and the chair, clearly his new fabric was up to the task at hand but the fastenings would need to be upgraded to something a little sturdier.
The three men had finally succeeded in getting the two leather straps secured around the Sergeant's lower legs, and Zola quickly took advantage of his preoccupation with battling the new restraints to slip back to the table and feed the sedative he'd prepared into the back of Barnes' hand.
"Fuck you, you megalomaniacal, text book god-complex, runt of the litter, asshole."
Yes definitely a reader.
Luckily the injection should knock him out before he had time to get really inventive with the insults at Zola's expense. His struggles against the restraints were already starting to weaken noticeably. He hooked up the I.V. line once more to put him fully under.
Zola moved away from the table and beckoned to Feltz to accompany him to the office section of the lab. He fetched his medical bag and a portable EEG that he handed to Feltz to carry, before entering back into the main lab once again.
The still-bleeding Koller was glaring at the gradually stilling form of Barnes he noticed. He'd learned too much from past mistakes to trust to professional conduct in these matters.
He paused for a moment before heading out of the laboratory door. "Corporal Koller. I'm leaving the safety of my experiment in your capable hands for the next hour or so."
There, he'd reminded the small-minded man that Barnes wasn't merely a prisoner who'd wronged him, he was also Zola's personal property with all that entailed.
An odd mixture of pride and disappointment crossed the heavy-set guard's face before it settled back into the bland neutrality that it typically possessed.
"Yes Herr Doctor, no harm will befall the prisoner."
"I am sure all will be well" Zola responded with a small insincere smile. Now on to more important things.
He headed towards 2C with Feltz following closely behind. "Sergeant, what is your evaluation of the test subject Private Harris?"
Feltz looked surprised to be asked his opinion.
"He had difficulty walking after the procedure sir. We were required to carry him to both the clean room and the storage closet."
"What about his mental state?" Zola pressed.
"Empty sir."
Zola stopped and looked at the fair-haired German officer "Can you elaborate?"
Feltz took a moment to adjust his grip on the bulky equipment before replying.
"He seemed confused about everything around him, and he seemed to keep opening his mouth to say something but it was as if he could not remember the words to speak."
Zola absorbed this information and resumed his journey down the corridor. Within a few moments he was outside room 2C.
He'd assumed it would be locked, and his assumption was confirmed when Feltz carefully put down the EEG equipment and selected a key from the bunch attached to his uniform belt. He quickly opened the door and stepped aside to allow the Doctor to enter.
Zola stepped into the room, it was large for a supply closet, one of the reasons he had selected it as a temporary holding area. He instantly spotted Harris, sat on the floor a few metres away at the far end of the interior, dressed only in military issue army undershorts and with his arms cuffed around a leg of a heavy shelving unit.
His muscular spasms had indeed stopped, Zola was pleased to see.
The dark-haired young Private looked up at him with unrestrained, almost child-like curiosity painted across his features, and a questioning look in his eyes. His mouth opened and shut a few times but no sounds were forthcoming. As Feltz had said he appeared to be almost entirely vacant.
Zola couldn't wait to discover if the inside matched the outside. Was this man now a tabula rasa, a true human blank slate?
Feltz had followed him into the room bringing in the scanning equipment.
"Please place that next to the subject Sergeant" Zola instructed.
The heavy box was deposited where the Doctor had requested and Zola began unpacking the small portable generator, the sensor cap and the small CRT display. It was hardly ideal but it would have to do. Once he was sure Barnes was totally unconscious he might risk bringing the Private to the lab for a more detailed scan, but this would suffice for now.
He knelt down with some reluctance on the cold concrete floor, and began to connect up the equipment close enough to Harris that the electrode net connected to the EEG would comfortably reach the young man's head. He had just finished putting the sensors in place when he noticed that the Private's left leg was oddly swollen at several points.
Zola leaned over and applied pressure to one of the areas.
Harris gave an almost inhuman sounding shriek and tried to draw his leg away, which apparently caused more pain and resulted in the utterance of yet more of those unholy sounds. Zola flinched and reached for his medical bag.
Harris calmed quickly, looking surprised at the sensation of feeling pain. It really was most like watching a child experience its first skinned knee. These however were multiple hairline fractures if he was not mistaken.
"You say you had to carry him here?" Zola asked the only other individual in the room currently capable of carrying out a conversation.
"Yes sir. He seemed unable to put weight on his legs."
The fractures must be a result of the muscle contractions caused by the shock treatments. Maybe restraining the legs had been a poor choice. The shearing forces produced by the limb straining against the bonds had seemingly broken the bones at multiple points.
Yet he could not risk leaving Barnes unsecured.
He opened his bag and prepared a morphine shot to relieve Harris' pain. It would be pointless to make him continue to suffer. He'd need to immobilise the leg as well he supposed, but that could wait until he was finished here.
The Private watched with interest as first the disinfecting swab and then the needle approached him, making a high-pitched sound of displeasure when the hypodermic entered his arm, but due to the cuffs holding him in place Zola was able to administer the painkiller and dress the injection point without too much bother.
The Doctor finished connecting up the leads between the various units and then flicked on the power. It took a few moments for a clear image to appear on screen. Far too slowly for Zola's liking, the diagram of Harris' brain appeared and what he saw both surprised and infuriated him.
The memory centres, at least those associated with short-term memory such as the hippocampus, all looked totally normal. Harris was processing the information from the world around him completely as he should as far as Zola could tell. The loss of speech was going to make testing Harris' recall a little more challenging, but as they had yet to confirm if his understanding was also impaired, there was still some hope that he might be able to gain some insight into the state of his subject's current synaptic integrity.
He once again focused his attention on the chronically confused looking young man in front of him.
"Private, if you can understand what I am saying please nod your head up and down."
The soldier nodded enthusiastically, apparently grateful to have some way to communicate.
This was fortunate indeed.
"Do you know what your name is?"
The Private seemed to ponder this a moment and Zola glanced at the monitor - little was happening elsewhere in the brain it still appeared. The Private shook his head 'no' without prompting. His memory of gestures if not speech seemed to be intact.
"Do you remember where you are from?" he pressed.
Again a shake indicating 'no' followed. And again there was little to no activity in the long term memory centres.
Zola decided to test out one thing more.
"Sergeant give me your boot."
Pleasingly Feltz didn't even question the odd request, he simply unlaced his heavy Hydra issue black boot and handed it to Zola.
Zola placed it in reach of the young US serviceman.
"Please tie the laces on this boot for me."
Harris instantly complied, effortlessly tying a neat bow. This was very good indeed. His implicit, mechanical memory still seemed to be completely intact, although the aphasia was an unwelcome side effect.
He would have to devise a way to protect the language centres of the brain before trying something similar on Barnes.
He sighed and stood up, brushing down the knees of his previously neatly-pressed trousers. He returned the boot to its owner and started packing up his equipment.
As tempting as it was to dive into the scientific goldmine of what had and hadn't been altered, erased or simply made inaccessible in Harris' memories, he'd already determined enough to develop a safe protocol to run on Barnes and Zola simply didn't have time for any further distractions.
He grabbed a splint from one of the shelves holding medical supplies and securely bound the young Private's leg.
Zola thought the soldier looked grateful. Maybe he would also come to appreciate the fresh start he'd been granted free from the horrors of war.
It would be most interesting to see how or indeed if his brain would with time adapt to the electrical damage it had sustained.
He shook off his pondering and turned to Feltz once again "Place him in the isolation cell for the time being. Barnes will not be needing it for the next few days at least. Have his rations delivered there." He checked his watch. "I must go review the day's progress on the Valkyrie, can I trust you to convey everything to its correct place?" he asked the guard.
"You can have faith in me Herr Doctor."
"Thank you Sergeant Feltz."
The man was so resolutely loyal to the cause that Zola half thought he may come to resent Barnes being used as Hydra's living weapon once he discovered the nature of the experiments he was party to, either that or he'd volunteer as the project's next subject (they really did need to come up with a name – for posterity if nothing else).
So far the man had shown nothing but dispassionate and highly effective professionalism, but Zola had come too far now to leave anything to chance, and an over-abundance of loyalty could be as dangerous as a lack of it was his firm belief.
He left Feltz with Harris in 2C and after quickly checking on both Barnes – still unconscious, pulse and respiration steady – and to a lesser extent Koller and whoever the other one was, he headed to the factory floor for his inspection.
Yes it would be wise to have one of Hydra's intelligence operatives evaluate Feltz, Koller and the other guards who'd born witness to his work on the serum. The Russian Karpov too. After all he needed absolute faith in those around him once he had the only proven super soldier serum still existing in the world. He did not intend to end up like dear trusting Erskine. It was a problem for another day, but one that he saw drawing closer with each hour and every new discovery.
As he stepped onto the factory floor, and attracted the notice of Colonel Kleiber so they could commence his review of the weapon and ship components, he only managed to give the man the minimum of attention required for him to absorb the reports of production line faults and machining errors. In truth his usually focused mind was still several floors above, in a room with a chair that had the power to reshape the will of men or remove it entirely.
Tomorrow.
The type of aphasia mentioned here is a real condition, usually caused by a stroke, and rarely severe enough to remove all speech but it can happen. Harris might have actually been able to say some ingrained phrases still - if he could actually remember any that is...